Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Greg McKay and Charter Petition Signatures

UPDATE: There have been several comments on this story. Please click and read them. Why does the News-Sentinel, WBIR and WATE not care about a standard of signature verification? I have over the years either had a petition for myself or for other people. The Election Commission has always said that if a signature, name or address does not match the voting records on file, then it is tossed.

Is it because this is about metro government and the media supports metro government? After all the News-Sentinel has printed the petitions as an in-kind contribution to Knox Accountability and has editorialized in support of amendments. So, it will be up to the people of Knox County to ensure that not fraud exists. It will require the people (through a public records request) to obtain a copy of the petitions and verify the signatures and double check the election commission's verification.

Original Post: Sunday August 31, 2008 @ 9:43 p.m. A source of Brian's Blog has supplied us with a report from an applicant that attended the Knox County Election Commission training for potential signature verification temporary employees. It appears from our individual that attended the training that Greg McKay does not want signatures presented to him for verification. Here is the report.

In the "training" time, we were shown on the power point overhead, a picture of a very clearly written signature."Greg McKay." Mr McKay (conducting the session) said it was his voter registration card from the files when he was 18 years old. (We will be comparing those cards to the signatures on the petitions.) Underneath that signature, there was a scribbled line or two. If anything, it "might" have been initials, but they did not resemble a "G" or "M"! (It looked like a toddler's random scribble. If they were letters, they were basically on top of each other.) Greg McKay said that what we were seeing was a legitimate signature. Several people questioned this comment, in the sense of disbelief. His comment was basically, " I'm telling you. this is a legitimate signature."!

An attendee commented/questioned to Mr. McKay that weren't we to "preview" and mark these questionable items and then someone in authority make the final decision? Mr. McKay's comment was something to the effect that we had 80,000 signatures to verify, and they didn't want a lot of those being sent to them. (he said they would go to him and his staff) and we had to get this done because they have an election to be getting ready. He reminded us that it was a legitimate signature. He expects us to use good judgment. (in other words, I understood him to mean not send him a bunch!) He said it had to get done in order to get the amendments on the ballot to be mailed overseas on 9/21 I believe.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Democrats. Can't trust them. Looks like dimpled chads for Knox County. Mackay will fix this for Metro Government. He should be removed before the signatures are certified. This is election fraud from the inside.

Brian,Working the graveyard shift at Love's here in Kansas I take a fair amount of credit card purchases. As I'm sure you know the person has to sign on copy of the reciept (which the store keeps) the second one the customer keeps. I see alot of absolutely atrocious "signatures" - if they can truly be called yet. Sometimes I think the customer just scribbles something down to get out and on their way in a hurry. NEVERTHELESS they are legitimate, the purchase is processed and we get our money. I think the samething is going on here. People often scribble and no one wants the system gummed up because of it, or the picky-ante fetishes of a few. If it's ink and the id checks out against the voter roll it's legit. Find something important and verifiable to report or shut up and get it done.

Brian,Something else I'd like to add this discussion: The possibility of enough fraudulent signatures to invalidate a petition is rather low.If a petition (ballot inititive, candidate for office, or whatever) requires X number of valid signatures always seek much, much more than X. For example of you need 1000 get 2000 or 3 or 4 thousand. That way the effect of invalid signatures is wiped away. If 1000 are needed and you have 3000 what is liklyhood that 2001 of them are invalid? The odds of that are simply not worth the time and effort of serious consideration. I think that might be part of McKay's thinking. Unless there is clear evidence of fraud the issue isn't worth considering. Period. Also, as I mentioned earlier, you'd need to define (quantify, have measurable standards) esxactly what a "legitimate signature" is. Many (most?) people have absouletly awful penmenship. I personally fear that because of computers and the like, penmenship will soon go the way of Latin. My penmanship is at best OK at times and poor at others, and that's after I took the effort to improve it when I was in college. For many today their signature is simply a unique mark they put on checks, credit card receipts, tax forms, marriage licences and so on.So ... I think too much has been made of this (signature thing). Save your energy and resources for campaigning against the issue(s) and win it on election day.Finally, let quickly add that, while I no longer have a dog in the fight and consequently don't care one way or the other, I do think metro government is coming to Knox County. Perhaps not this election cycle but someday. Urban sprawl, developement (industrial parks for example) and so on will continue. Knox County is a urban county compared to, say, Barton County, KS. The town I live in now has less area than North Knoxville alone. It is unrealistic to think, given Knoxville's growth that Metro Government will not occur and I fear that when it does your arguement ("Higher Taxes") will sound like nothing mre than an irritating broken record.

Only in Knox County could obtaining signatures by lying to people be acceptable. Again Greg Mackay and Brooks Thompson decide there is no fraud no foul. The Republican Party has voted 400 to 1 to oppose these combined Amendments. The Sentinel carried the story in the back of the paper. The Sentinel is a political Party. The KNOX GOP needs to spend the money to get the word out. What is being done?

I agree that the KnoxGOP MUST spend money to defeat these amendments. That is a view that MANY GOP members told me last night at the 8th district convention.

However, Irene McCrary is the Chair and has not indicated a willingness to spend dollars to defeat the amendments yet.

Call the GOP office 865-689-4671 and leave Irene a message to have the KnoxGOP put their money where their mouth is. As a member of the Executive Committee I will vote to spend money for an educational campaign.

Brian,You need to do a special posting that lays out the case against the admendments (and/or Metro government). I for one really don't understand what fuss is all about. "More Taxes"? Well, I'm predesposed to think that's the Republican response to just about anything. Maybe, I'm wrong. Let me know.